by Jenna Black
Bartolomeo gestured at a stiff, high-backed chair. “Please, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
She sat primly on the edge of the chair, back and neck held straight. The Maître gestured at his minions, and they left the room. She was now alone with the Maître, and though he was not young, he was not old enough to overpower her. Her eyes narrowed. What was he up to?
He crossed his legs and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “You wish to return to the land of your birth. Is that why you’re here?”
She nodded slowly. “There is nothing to keep me in America anymore. And I would rather die in an attempt to win my way home than to continue to live in exile.”
She winced as soon as she said it, for Bartolomeo himself had lived almost his entire life in exile, his maker having uprooted him from his home in Venice and dragged him to France.
Bartolomeo smiled. “I gather you have not come to love your adopted home as I have mine,” he commented, and she relaxed at his easy tone.
“No, I have not.”
“You know, of course, that I cannot give you leave to stay. Only the Seigneur can do that.”
“I understand.”
“And unless I make an introduction, the Seigneur will not see you.”
She hesitated. Protocol required the Maître to make a formal introduction. But perhaps she had already met the Seigneur, and the introduction wasn’t necessary.
“Is Allain D’Anjou still the Seigneur of this region?”
Bartolomeo made a regretful face. “I am afraid not, Madame. He was killed in an air raid during World War II.” He smiled, but it was a strangely sad expression. “All our power, all our strength, and we are as helpless in the face of war as any mortal.”
An exaggeration, of course, but she understood his point.
He lost the sad expression, his eyes filling with cunning. “So, I can choose to introduce you to the current Seigneur. Or, perhaps you can stand in for your menfolk as I indulge my thirst for revenge.” His eyes glowed with an unwholesome light. “I would enjoy it immensely, seeing that legendary pride of yours wither and crumble.”
She forced her face to give away nothing, though she suspected he could smell her fear. She was more powerful than he, and he’d sent his minions away. And yet, she felt sure he wouldn’t have done so if he hadn’t taken some sort of precautions to ensure his own safety.
He licked his lips slowly. “But perhaps you can offer me a sweeter revenge. Perhaps your dear son is still among the living?”
She dipped her chin in the slightest of nods, still keeping a wary eye on him.
His breath hissed in, his whole body stiffening as he leaned forward in his chair. “Take me to him. Take me to him and help me punish him for what he did to me. Do that and I will grant your introduction to the Seigneur. Don’t do it, and I shall be … most displeased with you.”
Camille’s jaw dropped open. “But, Maître, he’s in America!”
Bartolomeo gave her a bored look. “I had gathered that.”
She sat back in her chair, stunned. No vampire more than a century or two old would willingly leave his home. Oh, they might make very brief visits to places nearby. But no one she’d ever known would go so far away unless forced, as she and Eli were forced. Gabriel alone of all the vampires she’d known seemed to have no special attachment to his home territory. But for someone as old as Bartolomeo, who’d risen in rank to Maître, to be willing to cross the ocean …
The Maître laughed, easily reading her expression. “Yes, I hate him that much. I would travel to the ends of the earth to see him suffer.” He leaned forward in his chair once more. “He took from me my most prized possession. And my pride. And I would dearly love to return the favor.” He grimaced. “Unless your maternal instincts would keep me from my prize.”
Now it was Camille’s turn to laugh. “Maternal instincts?” she scoffed. “I have none.” Her jaw tightened as she remembered the dreadful night when Gabriel had slaughtered each and every one of her fledglings before her eyes. She’d seen how much he’d enjoyed it—not just hurting her fledglings, but hurting her. His own mother! Who’d given up everything for him!
“I will gladly give him to you, Maître. And I would gladly watch him suffer.” She frowned. “But even you and I together would not be able to take him. He’s grown exceedingly powerful. More powerful than I could ever have imagined.”
Bartolomeo sniffed disdainfully. “There is a reason born vampires are killed at birth, Madame. But I know ways to take down even the most powerful of vampires. Help me find Gabriel, and I will show you how.”
Camille rose from her chair to offer the Maître a respectful curtsy even as her mind flitted worriedly from one thought to another. She probed at what had once been her conscience and felt no twinge at the idea of turning Gabriel over to the Maître. No twinge—maybe even some pleasure—at the thought of the Maître punishing the boy for his many transgressions. Gabriel had betrayed her, and anyone who’d ever betrayed her had suffered the agony of her wrath. Except Eli, of course. Only the worst kind of fool would mount an attack against a vampire of Eli’s age and power. But then, Bartolomeo claimed he knew ways to take down even the most powerful of vampires.
“I will gladly help you hunt Gabriel,” she said. “And I would even be happy to witness his punishment. But I would ask one favor of you.”
The Maître gave her a narrow-eyed glare. “I am already doing you the courtesy of letting you live. Do not try my patience.”
One corner of her mouth tipped up. “I don’t think you will find this favor distasteful.” She was sure he had more than enough hate to go around. “I want you to help me hunt Eli. Much though Gabriel has angered me, it is Eli who is the root of all my troubles. He made me. He impregnated me. He dragged me from my home. And then he abandoned me. I would see him pay for all that he’s done to me. And since it is he who has denied you your revenge all these centuries, I would think the idea might appeal.”
Bartolomeo rose to his feet, smiling, a glow of genuine pleasure in his eyes. “To quote one of your quaint American movies, I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Camille curtsied once more, hiding her smile at his mangling of the famous line. Friendship was of course out of the question. But partnership … Yes, a partnership could very well be the perfect tool for both of them.
GABRIEL STOOD AT THE window of the penthouse apartment he’d rented and watched the sun slowly lower over the horizon. The smoggy city air seemed to catch fire in the red light of sunset. He leaned his forehead against the glass, fascinated. He’d never watched a sunset from this high up before, never seen the fire sink into the streets, pulling darkness in its wake.
He drew in a deep breath, surprised to find himself taking pleasure in something so … simple. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. While young vampires were practically comatose during the daylight hours, older ones could walk even in the brightest light of day. One quirk of his birth was that Gabriel had been able to walk in the daylight ever since he hit puberty.
After his meeting with Hannah last night, he’d been too keyed up to sleep, and had spent the afternoon gazing at the TV while inane movies and talk shows provided background noise.
His first trap was now set. Hannah would tell Eli everything and would then set herself up as “bait” for the trap. Then, when he came to extract information from her, the Guardians’ mortal helper would shoot him in the head.
Or so she thought.
He smiled, imagining Eli’s horror when he realized his folly, what danger he’d put this poor mortal woman in. Yes, this would make the perfect petty torment until Gabriel found a way to plunge the knife deeper.
A sudden twinge of pain in his chest made him frown. He touched his breastbone lightly, and the pain pulsed just beyond the reach of his fingers.
What the hell … ?
And then the twinge became agony, and with a wordless cry he dropped to his knees and curled himself arou
nd the pain. His breath seared his throat as he drew it in.
The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, but when he raised his head, he found he was no longer in his apartment. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, finding himself on his knees on a garish floral rug in a meticulously neat living room.
Rubbing his eyes didn’t make the room go away, and he soon realized he wasn’t alone. A young girl sat on a hard wooden chair that looked like it had been dragged from a classroom. He guessed her age as about fourteen, a girl on the cusp of womanhood, with the first hint of breasts filling out the Plain-Jane sweater she wore. Her hair was shorn cancer-patient short, and dyed a hideous carrot orange that made her skin look sallow.
A wound on the side of her nose bled steadily, the blood running down the side of her face until it dripped off her chin and spotted her faded blue jeans. She barely moved as he stared at her, her eyes fixed on the floor, not a tear escaping though the wound must have hurt.
Footsteps approached from the hallway, and the girl’s shoulders hunched. A muscle in her jaw ticked as she gritted her teeth.
Strangely, Gabriel found himself unable to move, unable to turn around and see the figure that approached from behind. He reached out with his senses and felt nothing. Then, he realized he smelled nothing. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath through his nose. Still nothing. He should have scented the blood in the air if nothing else.
A washcloth sailed over his head and landed wetly on the girl’s lap.
“Clean yourself off,” a harsh voice demanded.
He recognized that voice, though it took him a moment to place it. He’d heard it only once before, when he’d been inadvertently dragged into Jezebel’s memory.
Her grandmother.
He opened his eyes once more, and this time recognized young Jezebel, neither the child she’d been in the last vision, nor the adult he’d made his fledgling, but trapped somewhere in between. She held the washcloth to her bleeding nose, but her eyes remained fixed on the carpet.
“Jezebel Anne Johanson, you are a disgrace!” the grandmother pronounced. “Did you think for a moment about the risk you put everyone through? Did you warn anyone at that horrible place about your … condition?”
Gabriel could hear the sneer in the harpy’s voice, though he still couldn’t turn to see her.
Jez winced, and the pain that stirred behind her eyes was unmistakable. But her words showed none of it, betrayed only adolescent insolence.
“They wore gloves, Gram. No one’s stupid enough to do a piercing without wearing gloves these days.”
Ah. Now he understood the source of the blood. It seemed whatever piercing young Jezebel had gotten had been ripped from her nose. Rage stirred in Gabriel’s center. She was a child! Who would do such a thing to a child? If the grandmother didn’t like the pierced nose, she could have ordered Jez to remove the ornament.
“It was unthinkably selfish!” the harpy shrilled. “What if the gloves tore? You could have spread your filth to an innocent bystander all because you wanted to lash out at me.”
Jez’s eyes flashed with rebellion, and she reached over and pulled up her sleeve, displaying a bandage on her upper arm. “Don’t you want to know what else I did while I was at the tattoo parlor, Gram?” She ripped off the bandage, and Gabriel saw the hideously ugly pentagram tattoo he’d removed from her skin while she’d slept during her transition from mortal to vampire.
The grandmother screeched, and Jez rose to her feet, sneering. But despite the angry, hateful expression, Gabriel had no trouble seeing the boundless hurt that lay behind it.
“And you know what?” Jez continued, holding her chin up high, a gesture he’d come to know well. “I fucked the owner to pay for it all.”
A hand flew out of nowhere and smacked into Jezebel’s cheek, so hard she fell sideways and crashed against the coffee table. The blood flow from her nose redoubled, and she touched her fingers to it. But instead of crying, or quivering, or in any way trying to protect herself, she held up her bloodstained hand and laughed.
“Wanna hit me again? Just make sure you don’t hit too hard. You might break your own skin and then my filth will contaminate you.”
“Say one more word, Jezebel, and I will toss you out on the street with not a penny to your name. I will not tolerate this insolence in my house. I have taken you in against all my better judgment. I have put up with you year after year, like I put up with your mother before you. But enough is enough. One more incident like this, and—”
“What do you think the child welfare folks would think of that?” Jez retorted, once again trying to stanch the blood flow with the washcloth.
“Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You dress like a whore. You’ve done … terrible things to your hair. You’ve admitted you traded sex for some hapless man’s services. Who would disbelieve me if I said you just ran away from home?”
Gabriel wanted to kill the witch. He couldn’t see her, he couldn’t smell her, had never met her. But he wanted her to die. Because he plainly saw the truth that Jez’s grandmother chose not to see.
The tattoo on Jez’s arm was strictly amateur work. It was entirely possible Jez might have done it to herself. And Gabriel knew for a fact she hadn’t traded sex for anything. She’d been a virgin when the fledgling Killers had attacked her. He’d thought it odd when he’d read that from her memory when he transformed her, but now he understood. Despite her grandmother’s condemnation, Jez would never endanger another person knowingly, would not take the risk of infecting someone else.
The scene around him began to bleed and waver, another scene taking its place. Jez was older now, her frame gaunt with sickness. She looked with desolate eyes over Gabriel’s shoulder, and he knew who stood there just beyond his range of sight.
And suddenly, he couldn’t bear to see anymore. He didn’t know how this connection had happened, didn’t know why he was reliving her memories with her, but it had to stop.
Acting on pure instinct, he imagined heavy steel doors slamming shut all around him, imagined dragging himself back into his body. And to his surprise, it worked.
He knelt on his apartment floor, his forehead against the carpet, his chest still aching horribly. His breath came in desperate gasps, and he felt a scream, a scream that was not his, rising from somewhere deep in his belly. He raised his eyes to look out the window, where the sun had yet to sink below the horizon.
A nightmare.
Jez would not have awakened from her daytime sleep yet. If he was sharing her memories, these intense sensations and emotions, she must be having a nightmare.
He forced himself to his feet and staggered to the phone. She might not be able to wake yet, but he had to try. The pain made it hard to breathe, hard to remember the numbers, but he managed to punch them in on the third try.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang.
And then suddenly, the pain stopped and he could breathe again. He drew in deep gasps, wiping the sweat from his brow, thanking God that it was over.
“Hello?” Jez’s voice said. She sounded as breathless as he felt, and he imagined her heart still hammered from the nightmare. A nightmare she had actually lived.
“Hello?” she said again, more impatiently.
Trying to quiet his heavy breathing, Gabriel set the phone gently back in its cradle.
6
JEZ SAT AT HER kitchen table, groggy and shaken, feeling as if she hadn’t slept in a week. She’d been a vampire for four months, and she’d let herself believe that it was actually possible to leave the past behind. Then Gabriel had come to town and shattered it all by making her act like the scum-sucking bottom feeder her Gram always told her she was. And suddenly, she was having fucking nightmares!
She groaned and rubbed her eyes. Who knew vampires could have nightmares? She thought the daytime sleep was more like a coma. She’d never even had dreams before.
“Thanks a fucking lot, Gabriel,” she muttered under her breath.
She felt sick enough already without having to face the ordeal of feeding, but Eli had pounded into her the necessity of feeding as soon as the slightest hint of hunger stirred. If she didn’t feed the hunger, there was a risk it would escalate faster than she expected and she could attack the first mortal she laid eyes on. So she opened her fridge and pulled out one of the stoppered green bottles that held preserved lamb’s blood, and she pulled out the quart of milk she’d bought last week. It ought to still be good. Not that she thought the meal could be any more revolting even if the milk turned sour. She poured a tall glass of half milk, half blood, then pinched her nose shut and chugged.
Her stomach seriously considered rebelling, but she clapped a hand over her mouth and forced herself to take slow, steady breaths. Sometimes, she wondered if it was really necessary to add the nauseating milk. It was certainly true that the milk made feeding a very unpleasant chore, but would she really feel any urgent need to kill mortals if she enjoyed her food?
She didn’t want to find out. So she added the milk as Eli decreed, and tried not to hate him for it.
Geez, she was in a shitty mood this morning. She laughed at herself even as her stomach kept trying to toss her meal back up. When had she started to think of eight o’clock at night as “morning?”
Eli had called another meeting tonight, so she had less than an hour to pull herself together, get dressed, and get to his house down by the Delaware River. Usually, that would have been no sweat. Tonight, she felt like she was moving through molasses.
The dreams had been so goddamn vivid! And unlike the dreams she’d had as a mortal, they didn’t seem to be fading away into unreality like they should. Maybe because they’d been too real. Memories relived, rather than dreams.
And she still remembered every cruel word her grandmother had said. Remembered how she’d instantly assumed Jez had carelessly risked spreading her illness to others. Had assumed Jez just went to some random tattoo parlor and bled all over people for the fun of it.
